As a Ravens fan in San Francisco, I get asked this question a lot. "How does it feel to have a team that sucks"? Typically, I just give them the finger as a joke (seeing as these people are my friends) and I tell them "Every Damn dog has it's bad day".

And it's true, while we can't win them all, at least look at our past success, which is part of the reason why most Ravens fans are so.... whiny. I look at things optimistically overall, but during the games I'm a lot like people on here... Angry and pissed.

Some people will blame Ozzie Newsome. Some Harbaugh, some Flacco.....

To an extent, it's all of their faults, but they made these mistakes for various reasons. And after awhile, you begin to realize that this was inevitable. I just finished watching SB 47. Whole game with my old man. And I want to get these three things out of the way.

1. That was NOT holding on Smith. Smith did make contact, but Crabtree made it first. Afterwards, Smith got KNOCKED DOWN.

And several experts actually agree with us on this one. Good no call, I stand by it.

2. The WRs did NOT make Flacco.

Flacco played lights out. SB was probably his second best game ever (other than the Denver game 3 weeks earlier). Some will claim that Boldin, Jacoby, Torrey, and Pitta made the guy. Reality is that while this was a pretty good supporting cast, none of these men are all pro superstars. The media makes them out to be just to piss on Flacco.

Boldin was a hell of a player, he was tough as nails, had great hands, ran good routes, could do a hell of a jump ball. He was also a good leader, but he isn't the all pro superstar that most whiny fans out here make him out to be..... And he was not worth $6 million.

People continue to complain that "Ozzie only got a 6th rounder".

Ever consider that's the only thing he could get? If he could get a 3rd rounder, believe me, Ozzie would've(though I do think Ozzie redeemed himself here by trading a freaking FOURTH AND FIFTH ROUNDER for a franchise LT. But the Jags are stupid so....).

I still think Ozzie was in the right with the Boldin trade..... But we will get to this.

3. The Defense SUCKED.

Many hate the Ed Reed leaving and the Ellerbe not being retained. But reality is we actually upgraded at several of the positions that we lost in hindsight.

Let's look at it shall we?

Dayrl Smith > 36 year old Ray Lewis. Love you Ray, but god you were old, slow, and couldn't tackle. Only reason you were still employed at the time is because you were a coach on the field. That's pretty valuable in today's league but we had to play Zone, you couldn't cover.

Smith was a lot better than Ray was in previous years. I miss the insane amount of football IQ Ray had, but we needed an upgrade in coverage.

The committee assigned to replace Ellerbe was actually pretty on par with him. And he wasn't very good this past season either.

Canty > Kemo....

Well, this is kind of cheating. We actually put all pro Ngata at NT. But he was so much better than Kemo that it's not even funny....

Jimmy >> Cary

I hate Cary Williams. I was hoping he would leave and he did! And Jimmy turned the corner this year in a way that I did not expect..... He played lights out and is only going to get better.......

Elam > Reed(at this point in his career).

Elam had his struggles the past season, but he did also have a few flashes. He was not bad this year like half of you think, and he was out of position. Reed couldn't do crap in run support anymore because he can't tackle. Elam's pretty good in this department and while he isn't the best in the coverage department, he's not nearly as bad as Pollard was.

Elam has his flaws, but Reed's body broke down..... Elam had an ok rookie season, while Reed was cut at one point in the year.

While Huff was a disappointment for Ozzie, we didn't throw a lot of money at him... Not much of a loss.

Digs > Pollard.

Digs: So much better than Pollard in coverage it's not even funny.

Elvis Dumervil >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Kruger.

Do I need to go on?

Yes, you read it right, Ozzie actually did our defense well with the Boldin Money...

So let's to the part of this essay that we should be talking about....

1. The Start of the Off season.

We traded Q. A good WR who wasn't worth the $6 million he was getting paid. With his money, we were able to get

Dumervil

Canty

Smith

It probably contributed to the Monroe trade somehow.

These three acquisitions made the defense better. Spears was the odd man out, and probably would still be on the team if not for Tyson actually playing well, and Huff... Well Huff was terrible.

2. The Draft.

Elam

Brown

Williams

Simon

Juice

Wagner

KPL

Jensen

Mellete

We also drafted Marc Anthony, but he was cut.

Out of all these rookies the only one to get significant playing time was Elam. That's not a terrible thing, but we still have a few guys we don't know about..... Brown looked good in limited playing time, but again, limited. I do think he's our MLB of the future though, and Williams will prob start at NT next year.

Simon might become a situation pass rusher. Juice will be the H-Back next year in Gary's offense.

Wagner might start at RT next year... Some find this hard to believe, but he might do it.

KPL will play in the NFL for ten years...... He won't be a superstar but he'll be a rock solid dlinemen who is pretty good in the rotation.

Jensen is depth on the interior oline. Can never have too much of that....

All in all, we had a pretty good draft. Things were looking up until...

3. Pitta's Injury.

Our season died right here.... I was optimistic, but knew we were done. A QB can recover from losing his best weapon, but not recover from losing his second best to go with it...

Dallas Clark was serviceable, but all in all, we probably win a few more games with Pitta. The offense would go from inept to below average (which is sadly an upgrade). We would win one or two more games.

4. Marlon Brown's emergence(Start of the regular season).

There were a few positives to the season. Jimmy's (finally) breakout year, the defense improving, but Brown was the surprise NOBODY expected. He was our redzone threat. He was pretty effective at times, but has yet to reach his ceiling. He wasn't bad, but not what we needed. He wasn't a possession move the chains WR. But he was a target who put 6 points on the board.

He was needed.

5.The Monroe Trade (Midseason Blues)

Our offensive line was bad all year round. But Ozzie upgraded here. Monroe is a good LT. Now, with KO going out, life got harder, but we got a much needed upgrade. He was good this year, and we need to do everything to keep him around.

6. Flacco is not invincible(His injury)

Last two weeks of the season Flacco was not himself, and you could tell that.... His legs were the best weapon we had all season, and when they went down, we were screwed.

That was basically our season right there.......

So what Happened?

While the D did blow a lot of 4th quarter leads, that was more that they were the very definition of gassed. Not a scheme or personnel thing. The Defense still improved massively. They were not the reason for our failure this year.

You can't preform at your best if your exhausted.

Losing Boldin hurt, but it's not the death wound most people thought it was... It actually helped us a lot come to think of it. It let us retool the defense and become better.

But we as fans were emotional.... We curse Ozzie for being foolish to trade our best WR away.

But if you look at it now, you understand why Ozzie Did it.

Ozzie Newsome understood that we could not win the SB again with the roster we had. The defense almost blew the SB and they were getting older. Ellerbe wasn't worth the $35 Million he asked for, Ed Reed was old, Cary sucked. That team wasn't good enough to win two in a row.

So what did he do? Ozzie blew up the team by making a hard sacrifice to make. He went into a two year rebuilding plan, and traded away our best WR. He used that money to retool the defense that was so much better than 2012's that it's not even funny, and went with the youth movement......

And looking at it, that was the right thing to do. If we had resigned Reed, Ellerbe, and retained Boldin. The defense would probably be getting destroyed, and Flacco would have to throw 50 times a game to come back from behind. Even with a good supporting cast, we have no balance on the offense(which we didn't anyway so it's not like it matters), and while Flacco's stats would be spectacular, we would probably lose 2-3 more games. After the season, we would end up letting Boldin walk, seeing as resigning all three would send the team into cap hell. We would've never gotten Monroe, and chances are the Oline would've been far worse than it already was with Mckinne being there for the full season.

Ozzie made some good calls that hurt us in the short term but help us in the long term. Our defense looks to be good this up and coming season if we get Dayrl back.... Which I think we will. We are not in cap hell, we just can't afford to retain everyone. We would be in cap hell if we had done what the rest of you had wanted.

The other reason that he did this was because of Joe Flacco. He needed to be paid. And some call it the worst contract ever, I call it economics.

Basically, the market dictates your value. If you want to be successful in this world, you have to be skilled. Flacco is pretty skilled, and if we didn't pay him $120 million, I guarantee you that some team with a lot of cap money, desperate for a QB would have. But, and I'll only say this once.

He was worth every penny.

And guess what, so was Rodgers, so was Ryan, so was Romo, so was CUTLER.

Why? All four of these QBs are good enough to win the Big one. You can't win the Big one without a QB.

Two of them already have, both in very impressive fashion.... The only guy that wasn't worth it was Stafford. I don't think he's good enough to win a SB. He's pretty average if you take Megatron away from him.

And because of this we had to let Q go. And the Oline unexpectedly tanked, our starting TE got injured.

To put it in short, we sucked because we got hurt, and Ozzie hit a bad one in the 2012 draft(Gino). Our running game was completely decimated.

We probably make the playoffs if we have a running game. It may be a QB driven league, but the run sets up the passing game. If either fails that is a recipe for disaster. We brought in a run game guru to fix that.

We're a playoff team if we fix the run game. We're a SB caliber team again once we retool the supporting cast for Flacco.

We failed in all honesty because the running game failed. Losing Pitta and Boldin sucked. That's a fact, it just did. But we failed to make the playoffs because we could not run the ball effectively.

Our supporting cast was not terrible, but it wasn't ideal either. It would've been somewhat successful with a run game. But it didn't have one, which is why we were at home.

And by the looks of it, the front office and Harbs understand this as well. They're already on it. And honestly, who gives a crap if John was "forced" to do it. The important thing is that KUBIAK IS HERE.

I don't have the answers, I'm a speculating fan, but if you want the truth on why we failed to make the playoffs again, that's the truth.

First off, great piece there. This pretty much sums up my opinion of the season.

Flacco would have gotten paid 120 mil easily by a team like Cleveland or Arizona so we had to do it. Great work by Ozzie to limit the cap for the first 3 years and likely having a restructure down the line for when the cap goes bonkers on us.

I understood Boldin move partially because I knew Pitta could step up and be that guy for us. Pitta going down really hurt and then Jacoby went down for a bit as well. Jacoby was actually surprising me in the pass game until he went down so I think his loss also hurt early on.

Marlon Brown emerging was great. Whoever was on him as an undrafted FA did a great job. I don't think we get 8 wins without him. In fact, I will take away the Minnesota game right now.

Jimmy Smith emerging was great. I kinda realized he was starting to do better after the Buffalo game and not hearing Stevie Johnson's name get called. And he just carried on the rest of the way. I think we need some corner depth this year, especially if Graham goes but our top 2 guys are definitely good.

As for Flacco going down, I kinda held out hope since he was able to drive us down the field against Detroit but once he came out against New England, you could tell it was bad. That was when I knew we were not doing it. I held some hope in Cincy of at least making the playoffs, especially when we came back to tie it. But it is probably a good thing we lost that game for draft position anyways since we were not making it all the way and it was a 4-5 spot difference at least. There was no way we were going all the way this year, the feel was just different. We wouldn't have gotten out of an extremely motivated Denver.

All in all, this season was a bit of a wake up call to just how good us Ravens fans have had it the past few years. But now we are in great position to reload and get back.

Once again great piece you have here. Pretty much sums up the season from the Super Bowl last year to now.

The entire season can be blamed on the oline and running backs. Both rbs were hurt, KO was hurt, and the new scheme was run horribly. With a decent run game we win the division and probably do ok in the playoffs.

We're a playoff team if we fix the run game. We're a SB caliber team again once we retool the supporting cast for Flacco.

^^^^^This!!! I've been telling my dad this exact sentiment (he's a 49ers fan). He's still under the believe that Flacco's contract was the reason for our failure. I already told him what his cap number was and he took it back! This is why the FA and ,MOST IMPORTANTLY, the draft is huge for next season. Can't wait...

Lets stop a moment and give SF credit for the comeback. They were a Superbowl caliber team that began pounding our defense and almost totally shut down our offense after lights out. Interestingly few post give the defense credit for keeping SF out of the end zone multiple times to seal the deal. However, it's clear the team had to reload the defense and that move had as much to do with losing Ellerbe and Kruger whom they would have loved to keep if their contracts hadn't run its course, as it had to do with Lewis and Reed's time being over as top players.

I didn't read the whole thing but one thing I will state is you do a faulty comparison to Elam, Reed and Pollard.

You compare Elam with Reed in tackling, but not coverage and then you compare Elam to Pollard in coverage. You either compare him completely to Pollard or completely to Reed. Either way the coverage by our safeties this year was not good.

Reed last year still was better in coverage and under him there were very, very few defensive assignment breakdowns in the secondary.

Flacco played lights out. SB was probably his second best game ever (other than the Denver game 3 weeks earlier). Some will claim that Boldin, Jacoby, Torrey, and Pitta made the guy. Reality is that while this was a pretty good supporting cast, none of these men are all pro superstars. The media makes them out to be just to piss on Flacco.

Boldin was a hell of a player, he was tough as nails, had great hands, ran good routes, could do a hell of a jump ball. He was also a good leader, but he isn't the all pro superstar that most whiny fans out here make him out to be..... And he was not worth $6 million.

People continue to complain that "Ozzie only got a 6th rounder".

1. The Start of the Off season.

We traded Q. A good WR who wasn't worth the $6 million he was getting paid. With his money, we were able to get

Dumervil

Canty

Smith

It probably contributed to the Monroe trade somehow.

3. Pitta's Injury.

Our season died right here.... I was optimistic, but knew we were done. A QB can recover from losing his best weapon, but not recover from losing his second best to go with it...

So what Happened?

While the D did blow a lot of 4th quarter leads, that was more that they were the very definition of gassed. Not a scheme or personnel thing. The Defense still improved massively. They were not the reason for our failure this year.

You can't preform at your best if your exhausted.

Basically, the market dictates your value. If you want to be successful in this world, you have to be skilled. Flacco is pretty skilled, and if we didn't pay him $120 million, I guarantee you that some team with a lot of cap money, desperate for a QB would have. But, and I'll only say this once.

He was worth every penny.

I'll stick to the main points I have there. Agree with a lot of what you said. As far as Boldin, people need to realize, even with Boldin, we're not winning the SB last year. Also, he would be a FA right now. The 6 million was used wisely and the 6th rounder was honestly a gift from the Niners. It was a win win. Boldin got his money and went to a good team. We got something for a player we were going to release anyway.

Yes Flacco played great during the run last year, but this is what I always question. How can people say Boldin wasn't worth the money, but Flacco was? How can one complain when people bring up Flaccos contract then? Boldin was worth the 6 mil, the team just couldn't afford it. You can talk about the cap hit Flacco has now, but it's no sure thing that Flacco redoes his contract when the hit really takes affect. Boldin sure did a lot of the heavy lifting during that run too, regardless of what people think.

That being said, the trade was needed was it was more about cap space. I never liked the move, but understood it needed to be done. The money was well spent on the defensive side, Marlon Brown got a chance to shine and we would've been back at square one this off season anyway, with no Marlon Brown, no Boldin, no Doom and no Jacoby.

No idea what happened in the fourth quarters. The Bears game specifically looked like bad play calling and just all around bad play. I think it was Webb lined up on Bennet for a huge first down. At the time I remember thinking, why the hell would you allow that match up to happen. Defense needs to stay aggressive I feel and be more physical. The team just didn't seem to play with that chip it usually does.

Your analysis is good, and thorough, and I can agree with most of it. Except for the Boldin part. Not to say you are not correct, You may be. The problem is that your conclusions assume that we could not have gotten Dumervil, Canty and Smith without trading Boldin. That is, at best, an assumption. Perhaps the Boldin money was used to get Canty, Spears and Huff. Canty wasn't spectacular by any stretch of the imagination, and Spears and Huff were cut. I believe that Ozzie could have made the Dumervil thing happen regardless of Boldin.

Also the Elam and Reed, thing. Certainly Elam as a Raven played better than Reed as a Texan. But would he have played better than Reed as a Raven? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe Reed would have had more heart if he were still a Raven and surely would have been more familiar with the team so would have played better. Besides Reed is to the secondary as Ray was to the D-line. Reed was the co-coach of the defense. Elam could not fill those shoes.

I'll stick to the main points I have there. Agree with a lot of what you said. As far as Boldin, people need to realize, even with Boldin, we're not winning the SB last year. Also, he would be a FA right now. The 6 million was used wisely and the 6th rounder was honestly a gift from the Niners. It was a win win. Boldin got his money and went to a good team. We got something for a player we were going to release anyway.

Yes Flacco played great during the run last year, but this is what I always question. How can people say Boldin wasn't worth the money, but Flacco was? How can one complain when people bring up Flaccos contract then? Boldin was worth the 6 mil, the team just couldn't afford it. You can talk about the cap hit Flacco has now, but it's no sure thing that Flacco redoes his contract when the hit really takes affect. Boldin sure did a lot of the heavy lifting during that run too, regardless of what people think.

That being said, the trade was needed was it was more about cap space. I never liked the move, but understood it needed to be done. The money was well spent on the defensive side, Marlon Brown got a chance to shine and we would've been back at square one this off season anyway, with no Marlon Brown, no Boldin, no Doom and no Jacoby.

No idea what happened in the fourth quarters. The Bears game specifically looked like bad play calling and just all around bad play. I think it was Webb lined up on Bennet for a huge first down. At the time I remember thinking, why the hell would you allow that match up to happen. Defense needs to stay aggressive I feel and be more physical. The team just didn't seem to play with that chip it usually does.

For the simple reason that he's a franchise QB. I don't care if you think he's elite or not. That simply doesn't matter. What does matter is that he's a franchise guy and the kind of player that you can build a franchise around. That's why he's worth it. 120 just happens to be the going rate. We don't pay it, we don't have a franchise guy. Is a 31 year old declining WR worth the money? No.

Anyways...

Looking at our moves in FA and the draft, I still can't believe we went 8-8. We improved everywhere. Every position was improved except the offensive line and tight end, but even tight end would have been great had Pitta not got hurt. Amazing how our season was failed by one position group.

For the simple reason that he's a franchise QB. I don't care if you think he's elite or not. That simply doesn't matter. What does matter is that he's a franchise guy and the kind of player that you can build a franchise around. That's why he's worth it. 120 just happens to be the going rate. We don't pay it, we don't have a franchise guy. Is a 31 year old declining WR worth the money? No.

Anyways...

Looking at our moves in FA and the draft, I still can't believe we went 8-8. We improved everywhere. Every position was improved except the offensive line and tight end, but even tight end would have been great had Pitta not got hurt. Amazing how our season was failed by one position group.

Declining player seems a bit subjective considering he had a better season this year than last, but I guess let's throw that out the window. The truth is he was worth the money and your point on that has no ground to stand on. My point on bringing up the money was, how can people complain when Flaccos contract is brought up yet bring up other people's contracts? Nothing more or less. Also, check the price of top slot receivers. Boldin could be used outside and in the the slot interchangeably. He was also the best blocker aside from the lineman and Leach.

Anyways...

I still think Juan had more to do with our decline in o-line play than the actual personnel itself. Might be wrong, but I don't like the fact he's still around.

For the simple reason that he's a franchise QB. I don't care if you think he's elite or not. That simply doesn't matter. What does matter is that he's a franchise guy and the kind of player that you can build a franchise around. That's why he's worth it. 120 just happens to be the going rate. We don't pay it, we don't have a franchise guy. Is a 31 year old declining WR worth the money? No.

Anyways...

Looking at our moves in FA and the draft, I still can't believe we went 8-8. We improved everywhere. Every position was improved except the offensive line and tight end, but even tight end would have been great had Pitta not got hurt. Amazing how our season was failed by one position group.

This, you can't win games today without a QB. Flacco proved he belongs, and the market dictated that he was worth $120 million.

And to put it into retrospective I can name 15 WRs better than Boldin..

Megatron

Larry Fitzgerald

Brandon Marshall

Julio Jones

AJ Green

Roddy White

Andre Johnson

Demaryius Thomas

Victor Cruz

Antonio Brown

Randall Cobb

Wes Welker

Alshon Jeffery

Desean Jackson

Vincent Jackson

Dez Bryant

I just named 16! I'd take any one of these guys over Boldin no questions asked (including Jeffery which some of you probably disagree with)

Boldin not a all pro superstar?????/ Wow! Your kidding right? I had to stop there.

Receivers didn't make Flacco? Your right. In the sense that he will still be Flacco without them. But he is clearly a QB that needs great skill position players. If that is what you are alluding to.

He's not. He's a good WR but not a superstar all pro. Hell, living in SF Ik people who consider him to be the second best WR that they have behind Crabtree.

Flacco doesn't need superstars, in fact he's never had a superstar WR. He needs a solid, not spectacular supporting cast, but which QB doesn't? Manning always had Harrison, Wayne, Clark in his prime, James. He had more talent in Harrison alone then Flacco has ever had before. We don't have a superstar, and haven't had a superstar on offense besides Ray Rice.... What he needs is a running game again and we probably make the playoffs.

He does need weapons to return to the big one again though.... He isn't going to make it with the likes of Marlon Brown as the #2. No QB would.... Just saying.

This, you can't win games today without a QB. Flacco proved he belongs, and the market dictated that he was worth $120 million.

And to put it into retrospective I can name 15 WRs better than Boldin..

Megatron

Larry Fitzgerald

Brandon Marshall

Julio Jones

AJ Green

Roddy White

Andre Johnson

Demaryius Thomas

Victor Cruz

Antonio Brown

Randall Cobb

Wes Welker

Alshon Jeffery

Desean Jackson

Vincent Jackson

Dez Bryant

I just named 16! I'd take any one of these guys over Boldin no questions asked (including Jeffery which some of you probably disagree with)

My goal isn't to turn this into a Flacco thread, but after this season if you want to go by numbers and performance, I could name about 29-31 who did better than Flacco. I'd also say it's debatable for some of those guys, one off the top is Welker.

My goal isn't to turn this into a Flacco thread, but after this season if you want to go by numbers and performance, I could name about 29-31 who did better than Flacco. I'd also say it's debatable for some of those guys, one off the top is Welker.

Yeah... Numbers wise Flacco has never been great. But I'd still trust the guy over 26 of them at the very least..

He's a winner who's only missed the playoffs once.

Welker deserves to be up there. Some argue he's a product of the system but he was a pretty decent guy before he went to NE. Remember, the pats traded a second rounder for him. Once he got a QB he started producing.

And as a pure slot WR he's better than Q........... And he didn't go for $6 million

Yeah... Numbers wise Flacco has never been great. But I'd still trust the guy over 26 of them at the very least..

He's a winner who's only missed the playoffs once.

Welker deserves to be up there. Some argue he's a product of the system but he was a pretty decent guy before he went to NE. Remember, the pats traded a second rounder for him. Once he got a QB he started producing.

And as a pure slot WR he's better than Q........... And he didn't go for $6 million

And did he get paid $6 million? No, he didn't.

Again, my only point about the Flacco thing was mentioning the money. If you check the "going" rate on a good slot wr, thats about what Boldin was making(salary wise, not cap hit). I'd personally take Q over Welker, due to toughness, clutchness, better blocker, feel he has better hands and can be used more. Also, Welker signed a 2 year, 12 million dollar contract, so yea, he got about 6 million. Amendola got about the same thing as well (5 years, 31 mil).

Let me also say, this isn't me saying we needed to keep Boldin. I know and understand why it was done, it's just funny to me how people treat him soon as he left, like he wasn't a key part of the team. Everyone complains about guys not getting open or contesting tough catches. He would've helped in that department. He was also a good football mind. He understood how to find the holes in zones, had a good chemistry with Joe and seemed to be a vocal leader most respected.

Again, my only point about the Flacco thing was mentioning the money. If you check the "going" rate on a good slot wr, thats about what Boldin was making(salary wise, not cap hit). I'd personally take Q over Welker, due to toughness, clutchness, better blocker, feel he has better hands and can be used more. Also, Welker signed a 2 year, 12 million dollar contract, so yea, he got about 6 million. Amendola got about the same thing as well (5 years, 31 mil).

Let me also say, this isn't me saying we needed to keep Boldin. I know and understand why it was done, it's just funny to me how people treat him soon as he left, like he wasn't a key part of the team. Everyone complains about guys not getting open or contesting tough catches. He would've helped in that department. He was also a good football mind. He understood how to find the holes in zones, had a good chemistry with Joe and seemed to be a vocal leader most respected.

I'd take Welker. He's also tough. He's a slot WR, he goes across the middle and takes big hits. He's led the NFL in receptions with Randy Moss on his team, and he's a good route runner.

Not to mention Boldin's slower. Welker is quicker and can get open because of it. He has better run after the catch ability.

And don't give me the 40 time thing. Running in a straight line and football speed are different things...

For me the Ravens 2013 season was all summed up when I watched the Seahawks vs Broncos. We won a damn superbowl OUR team our CITY was on the biggest stage in sports against the best Defense and we WON!!!...we spent 10 years going from sucky Qb to sucky QB when finally in 2008 we found John Harbaugh, Flacco and Ray Rice and from there we kept getting better and better until we won the big game in the 2012 season. There comes a time where every franchise has to revamp and restyle all aspects of the team and that was 2013 fro the Ravens.

You NEVER see teams in the new era repeat as champions, the Seahawks will be lucky to even make 10 wins next year with all the big moves they will have to make in the next month and Denver will be back in rebuild mode as soon as Peyton hangs up the cleats. As a franchise if you have a strong front office like we are so fortunate to have than you can survive a free agency period where you lose half of your team, you can make the right moves and get your team back on the track to becoming playoff contenders. We were pretty terrible in 2013 considering it was the worst season since we had good ol hall of shamer Kyle Boller under center, but we were a few wins away from being in the playoffs despite what we went through.

Ozzie Newsome is a very conservative GM and always makes his every move with his sights aimed on the future and aimed on getting us to the next SB. He doesnt like to spend a lot of money on flashy free agents and he knows from the two rings on his fingers that you can not be like the Miami Dolphins or the Dallas Cowboys and win a SB with your checkbook and going crazy over all the free agents. You win by saving $ and drafting smart, and we all know Ozzie is generally excellent at doing so. We are already a few offensive pieces away from being back into the mix and that will all get settled in just a few months here with the combine set to kick off in a few weeks and free agency right around the corner. I see 2014 similar to the "2008" season we are anew team with the same mentality to get back in the hunt for that 3rd ring.

At this point in time we have a sound defense with a new schematics setup for offense...all we have to do is add some personnel and we will be in perfect shape. I see us being a 10+ win team in 2014 fighting our way into the playoffs from the wildcard.